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Kola Boof
Unregistered guest
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2005 - 11:59 pm: | 
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WHY IS THE BOOK INDUSTRY DYING?
an article by Kola Boof
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Kola Boof
Unregistered guest
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 02, 2005 - 12:01 am: |
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While chatting with a very successful writer friend the other day, he complained bitterly about the expectation on the part of many of the major publishing houses these days....that an African-American author must not only do justice to the craft of writing before they can receive consideration for publication, but must also get out there and spend years of valuable time (time away from the actual writing) to market their name, create an audience for their work, publicize their "talent" and generate BUZZ....all before they can secure a book deal....and he pointed out that when a book deal finally does happen for a black author, it usually starts with an advance of say $5,000 measley dollars....or even as low as $2,500 if you're signed by a company that many agents complain about in particular, Dafina-Kensington.
To some of us at AALBC.COM who are familiar with P.R. dynamos like Zane, E. Lynn Harris and Kola Boof, it seems par for the course and it seems like a natural part of the process....but
the fact is....White Authors from writing workshops, colleges, universities and quarterly short story publications...are almost never expected or forced to go through such Non-Professional, COMMERCIAL measures just to get their work read or to be seriously considered for discovery.
Still, as my fellow writer noted.......every since Terry McMillan's "Waiting to Exhale" sold 20 million copies more than a decade ago.......there seems to be a myopic mindset among Acquisition Editors that a black author is supposed to make themselves into a "celebrity brand name" before they can be considered "WRITERS" for the black market....and even more enduring.....is the idea that BLACK READERS no longer have any interest in literary fiction, but are only interested in the slick Commercial Fiction of Eric Jerome Dickey, E. Lynn Harris, Zane and the new glut of superstar "Hip-Hop Street writers".
By the same token, all of the major white houses are complaining that: "The book industry is DYING."
They claim that Americans now have much ***Shorter Attention Spans*** because of the onslaught of Music Videos, the Video Game revolution and the sweeping Hip Hop culture.
Definitely, there is...SOME truth.....in that.
But I have my own theories about the REAL reasons that the book industry is dying...and I'd love to hear your responses and opinions on the subject.
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Kola Boof
Unregistered guest
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 02, 2005 - 12:01 am: |
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KOLA'S THEORY:
First of all, the Book Industry really has been dying. What was once an industry that sometimes outgrossed the film and music industries....and ALWAYS placed in the top 3 moneymakers for U.S. entertainment...has now become a boring, predictable white mammoth that basically "exploits" now, rather than dictates the internal soul of Popular Culture.
There are no more Beat Generation, Paris Review launches, Norman Mailer, Malcolm X, James Baldwin controversies....no more groundbreaking Alice Walker, Erica Jong, Gloria Steinem and Toni Morrison type "socially political" EXPLOSIONS.
Editors today shy away from anyone who isn't already familiar and SAFE to their tastes. They prefer to cling to Old, Dead Revolutions of the 1960's--and out of "conservative fear"---they inundate us with messages and books that border on Forced-Multiculturalism, Forced-Pan-Brotherhoodism (as the Latino becomes America's new dominant minority and Power-Color), Forced-Likeability Hounds and a Forced-Bi-racialness to Black Culture, which is more a reflection of what the "watering down" that the White Supremacist Establishment envisions for Blackness to become....rather than what it really is now in the heart of the people.
It's like the 1950's in a way.
Instead of new ideas, an exploration of radical viewpoints and a more complex portrayal of the world as it really is today (and the fact that major NEW history is being created today).....we find that we are not being given a VOICE for our times and that the book companies are ran and overpopulated with editors and big wigs who are too afraid.....and frankly....too STUPID....to even recognize what the VOICE of our times is.
I say from my own personal experience dealing with the major publishers that it's the Editors at today's houses who really are killing the book industry.
They only want to publish books that have ALREADY been hits....publish "formulas" that have already proven "safe".....publish authors who are virtual clones or copycats of authors that are already Unique, and therefore, Icons.
Each year, you notice that about 15 to 27 new black female authors are billed as "The New Toni Morrison, the New Alice Walker". It's even happened to me, and for a real, true artist--it's NOT FLATTERING, and it especially doesn't do justice to mega-gifted women like Toni and Alice.
Powerful Black Editors like Malaika Adero basically cow-tow to the White Tastes of the industry and fail to bring anything that's innovative, cutting age or NOW.....and perhaps, in all fairness....Ms. Adero has to keep the MONEY flowing into the coffers of her house, being that she's black, and simply can't take the big risks that one takes to advance Literary History and make a legacy for a name so beautiful as Malaika Adero...and because she is black and had to be so gifted already, just to get where she is, I don't blame her for being conservative and going with what she knows.
But it still doesn't help the publishing industry and it still doesn't help her legacy, and in the end, I mention this particular editor, because she is our biggest and yet we are forced to acknowledge in her the same Flacid Conservatism that stagnates the White ones.
Good Art creates its own sensation. It embeds itself into the people's minds and souls and it passes along.....ever slowly.....until it catches on. If you package it right...it catches on quicker.
There are multitudes of fresh, raw, fierce, new VOICES out here that the editors at the publishing houses are too vapid to discover or too cynical to take a chance on. For this reason, the editors.....BORE the public, give them the same old tired shit over and over again and stifle their own business.
I am one of the lucky ones, because a group of wealthy Black men from Radio and Television (not from publishing--but from Radio and Television) decided that my work was "timely", daring and deserved to be heard---mainly because everywhere they went, people were talking about me and they wanted to know, "Who in the hell is Kola Boof?".
After they read my books, they could not believe that I was not published by a major American house, and when they published my books and saw how quickly they were snapped up by the "voice-less" young THINKING black women on the college campuses, they realized that there is a huge void out here that is being underserved, ignored and "sold out".
It's been 5 years...and amazingly, people are...STILL...talking about me.
Most writers out there are not so blessed.
The book industry, I tell you, is dying because it lacks innovative, multi-faceted, ballsy editors with their hands on the pulse of the people.
What's Your Theory???
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Chris Hayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 965
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 02, 2005 - 10:39 am: |
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Id agree with all that you said. I'd also add that the competition from movies, tv (and now VCRs
dvd internet and video games) has eroded the audience that reads fiction for pleasure.
I think if I wasn't a writer I probably wouldn't read much fiction--as it is I must admit that, though I write fiction I read mostly non fiction.
I'd also like to add that, having a background in poetry (which involves reading your work in front of audiences) I enjoy that aspect of the craft (biz? game?) wherein you go out and market yourself and meet people and press the flesh. I have seen that it takes time away from the writing itself--but I have also seen that it helps the writing--I enjoy gauging the effect of my words on a live audience, getting their feedback. |
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